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Any without Hell?
- Thread starter willy1590
- Start date
Mine. 
So far as I know, neither Taoism nor Confucianism has a hell. I've heard Shintoism has a hell, but I'm not sure anyone believes it's real.
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JayJayDee
Avid JW Bible Student
Isn't it amazing that so many faiths have such a place where people suffer after death if they have not lived their lives "correctly". Definitions vary but the outcome is usually horrendous! What kind of deity would enjoy the eternal suffering of his children?
In the Bible, eternal life is contrasted with eternal death, not eternal torture, which accomplishes nothing but feeding a fiendish desire for pointless suffering. Would we willingly serve the interests of such a cruel and heartless deity?
No punishment prescribed for God's people involved torture or punishment in excess of the crime. All punishment was designed to serve justice. It was designed to correct and rehabilitate the offender and to compensate his victim. If he had committed a capital offence, he paid with his life. He would never offend again.
Eternal punishment serves no purpose at all. :no:
Christianity adopted this "hell" from non-Christian religions. There was no such place in Jewish teachings. "Sheol" (hades) was simply the grave where no conscious existence was possible...a place that was the unavoidable destination of all. (Eccl 9:5, 6, 10)
The Bible's teaching of a resurrection was lost when these teachings about an afterlife took over. Jesus said he would call "all in their graves" and they would come out of them. Hades was to be emptied. (John 5:28, 29; Rev 20:13)
Jesus did not teach about such a horrible destination for the wicked, so therefore no such place existed in original Christianity. He spoke about "Gehenna" but this "hell" had nothing to do with conscious torture. The notion of a "hell of torment" was grafted over some NT writings that were speaking in symbolic terms, not literal ones.
True Christianity has no such teaching.
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
Jehovahs Witnesses dont believe in such a place.
Hell is the grave.
The worst it can do is grow flowers
Judaism, Buddhism (generally), Hinduism (generally), Taoism, Confucianism, Paganism (generally), Christian Universalism, Unitarian Universalism.
Those are the ones off the top of my head.
Those are the ones off the top of my head.
dave_
Active Member
In the Bible, eternal life is contrasted with eternal death, not eternal torture, which accomplishes nothing but feeding a fiendish desire for pointless suffering. Would we willingly serve the interests of such a cruel and heartless deity?
But it isnt so hard to accept death and not fear death.I believe god's (or the idea of it) greatest strength is fear.If not for fear how would god be strong enough to stop evil in this world?
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JayJayDee
Avid JW Bible Student
God does not want his children to serve him out of a cowering fear. As a parent, I would consider myself a failure if such was the response of my own children. Authorities might also want to question me on issues relating to child abuse.
Our Father wants our love, our respect and our unquestioning obedience, but he has an enemy who is bent on painting him as a despot. Jesus showed us the Father....he was not despotic or demanding or unloving. He tortured no one.
He was scathing in his criticism of the false shepherds in Israel, but merely warned them of God's coming judgment.
Fear of death has plagued mankind since the beginning. We are not programmed for death or ageing or sickness or suffering....none of that was supposed to be part of our existence. Yet the first rebels dumped all that on us to carry.
No one who enjoys a fair measure of health, wants to die. But only when man invented fanciful ideas about an afterlife, did they begin to fear death, not just as an inevitable part of this life, but as a place of eternal suffering and torment.
It was never God's intention to stop evil in the world right away. His permission of the devil's rulership was to demonstrate how life would be without God's rules to govern what we do. In handing rulership of the world over to the devil, God did not abandon his faithful ones. He has seen them safely through all the trials, proving once and for all that even under the most trialsome conditions, not all humans would "curse God to his face" (Job 1& 2) He has led us by his word and his spirit, so we have no excuse to abandon him.
That one simple test in Eden was the catalyst for a change of rulership. Satan basically claimed that humans would be better off under his rulership which included a knowledge of evil. Has this knowledge benefitted mankind in the slightest way? Has giving the devil free rulership of the earth brought peace and happiness to the world? He can give rulership to whomever he chooses and he has chosen some doozies over the centuries. (Luke 4:5, 6)
This is a very serious learning curve that we have been exposed to. Both the angelic and human sons of God have been through a rigorous test to see who would remain faithful. God allows us to show him what we are made of. Satan is permitted to test us and only those who pass the test will be granted everlasting life.
God doesn't need to frighten us about death....its hard enough to endure life in these times.
Death carries no fear of itself. None of the Hebrew Bible writers conveyed a fear of death. There is no "hell" in their teachings.
Look at the account of the raising of Lazarus in John 11. Then ask yourself....
Where did Jesus say Lazarus was before he raised him?
Where did his sister think he was?
Where did Lazarus himself say he was?
Get back to me once you have read it....
... almost all of them?
Breathe
Hostis humani generis
Most of them, actually.
For Christianity: Anglicanism has very little emphasis on Hell, also JWs, and possibly Eastern Orthodox and some Catholics, maybe.
Sikhs, too, do not believe in such a Hell.
ametist
Active Member
I think it is more important to understand or work on why you have such a demand for yourself..an absence of hell.. Perhaps first discovering that and following the path there on can help you sooner find what you want or you may even find yourself there.
So please note existence of hell or reality of suffering is not something to be escaped from at all cost but can be tool to understand ourselves and what we have all have inside of us.
So please note existence of hell or reality of suffering is not something to be escaped from at all cost but can be tool to understand ourselves and what we have all have inside of us.
dave_
Active Member
God does not want his children to serve him out of a cowering fear. As a parent, I would consider myself a failure if such was the response of my own children. Authorities might also want to question me on issues relating to child abuse.
Our Father wants our love, our respect and our unquestioning obedience, but he has an enemy who is bent on painting him as a despot. Jesus showed us the Father....he was not despotic or demanding or unloving. He tortured no one.
He was scathing in his criticism of the false shepherds in Israel, but merely warned them of God's coming judgment.
Fear of death has plagued mankind since the beginning. We are not programmed for death or ageing or sickness or suffering....none of that was supposed to be part of our existence. Yet the first rebels dumped all that on us to carry.
No one who enjoys a fair measure of health, wants to die. But only when man invented fanciful ideas about an afterlife, did they begin to fear death, not just as an inevitable part of this life, but as a place of eternal suffering and torment.
It was never God's intention to stop evil in the world right away. His permission of the devil's rulership was to demonstrate how life would be without God's rules to govern what we do. In handing rulership of the world over to the devil, God did not abandon his faithful ones. He has seen them safely through all the trials, proving once and for all that even under the most trialsome conditions, not all humans would "curse God to his face" (Job 1& 2) He has led us by his word and his spirit, so we have no excuse to abandon him.
That one simple test in Eden was the catalyst for a change of rulership. Satan basically claimed that humans would be better off under his rulership which included a knowledge of evil. Has this knowledge benefitted mankind in the slightest way? Has giving the devil free rulership of the earth brought peace and happiness to the world? He can give rulership to whomever he chooses and he has chosen some doozies over the centuries. (Luke 4:5, 6)
This is a very serious learning curve that we have been exposed to. Both the angelic and human sons of God have been through a rigorous test to see who would remain faithful. God allows us to show him what we are made of. Satan is permitted to test us and only those who pass the test will be granted everlasting life.
God doesn't need to frighten us about death....its hard enough to endure life in these times.
Death carries no fear of itself. None of the Hebrew Bible writers conveyed a fear of death. There is no "hell" in their teachings.
Look at the account of the raising of Lazarus in John 11. Then ask yourself....
Where did Jesus say Lazarus was before he raised him?
Where did his sister think he was?
Where did Lazarus himself say he was?
Get back to me once you have read it....
I read it there was no mention of afterlife only death or sleep mentioned.
If death is the only and ultimate punishment then about what punishment are you talking here?Because once someone who committed a crime and died he will have no other chance.
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My priest, when I was Eastern Orthodox, said the EOC considers Hell as separation from God, chosen deliberately by the soul. It isn't a place of fire. The eternal torment is being eternally separated from God.
Jehovahs witnesses have been teaching what the Bible says about hell for well over 100 years; that the Hebrew and Greek words commonly translated "hell" in English simply mean the grave. Thus, we believe, our hope lies in the resurrection, not in any supposed afterlife. (John 5:28,29)
JayJayDee
Avid JW Bible Student
Exactly. Did you notice Lazarus' sister's expression about "the resurrection on the last day"? What did she mean?
Lazarus himself made no expression about being anywhere. If he had attained to life in heaven, would he not have said so? Why would Jesus have brought him back to this life only to grow old and die a second time?
Death is like a sleep, with no consciousness of the passage of time and no activity of any description. (Eccl 9;5, 6, 10) This is what the Jews believed about death. There was no 'afterlife' as a result of some conscious part of man surviving the death of the body to exist in some other place. The Jewish belief was that of a physical resurrection of the whole person. All of the resurrections performed in the Bible were physical returns to life, reunited back with their families resulting in great joy.
The only resurrection recorded that was different, was Christ himself. It is said that he was resurrected "in the spirit" yet his disciples saw a body of flesh. He "appeared" to them on several occasions to reinforce the fact that he was alive, but he did not dwell with them as he previously had. On one occasion, he "disappeared" right before their eyes, so his resurrection was not like all the rest. He was a spirit who could manifest in physical bodies. (As angels had done many times before in the scriptures)
Only those who are chosen to rule with Christ in heaven will experience 'a death and resurrection like his',. i.e. death in the flesh, but resurrection "in the spirit" in order to attain to life in heaven. "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom" but faithful ones, not chosen for heavenly rulership, will be raised to life right here on earth to enjoy the blessings of kingdom rule. (Rev 21:1-5)
Do you see the contrast between a resurrection back to life on earth for the majority of humans who have ever lived and those who are deemed by God to be "wicked"? Jesus said that both "the righteous and the unrighteous" would be brought back to life....these it says are called out of their tombs. (John 5:28, 29)
The "unrighteous" are given opportunity to prove themselves repentant in a period of judgment. The "wicked" on the other hand will be granted no such opportunity. Gehenna was the destination of the wicked. Jesus used Jerusalem's garbage dump as a fitting symbol of everlasting death. There was no memorial tomb for the criminals whose bodies were thrown into the fire. There was no final resting place with their name and family lineage to indicate that they had ever lived. The Jews understood Jesus' reference to Gehenna as a fitting symbol, not of eternal torture, but of never seeing life again. Death for them is eternal. God's justice demands nothing more. Why would God resurrect the wicked, who have paid sin's wages, and return them to life only to punish them forever? There is no justice in that.
Everlasting life is promised only to the righteous....wouldn't God have to grant everlasting life also to the wicked in order to consciously punish them forever?
Is it in keeping with his personality to do so? Immortality for all human souls is not a Bible teaching. Only the chosen ones will experience such a life. The majority will be brought back to enjoy the wonders of everlasting life, right here on this magnificent earth where God put us in the first place. Lose the heaven hang up and everything just makes sense.
Breathe
Hostis humani generis
That's similar to what I heard about it, as well.
Truly a beautiful denomination. If only I could accept the Trinity.
Agreed. It can be a very mystical approach to Christianity. Unfortunately it has been bogged down by as much folk belief and mythology as Hinduism and Buddhism have. That obscures and supplants much of its beauty.
In my non-dual Hinduism (Advaita) there is no hell as it's understood by Abrahamic types. An evil person might have an extremely horrible experience after death but even this is temporary and he will eventually get liberated from this state.